Are you unconsciously wasting money? Here’s the fix…

Maybe five or ten years ago, if I’d said this in a room full of people, I would’ve gotten a lot of blank stares or been laughed off the stage. But nowadays, I think more people are willing to connect the dots between their thoughts, their energy, and their money.

Your energy, your mindset — whatever you want to call it, it affects how you deal with situations every single day, and how you show up in the world. And what I often see is that mindset and behavior issues that seem on the surface to have nothing to do with money often influence our money decisions very directly, and sometimes very negatively.

Take me for example: It’s no secret that I consider myself a recovering codependent — a behavior that is about becoming so focused on fulfilling an ideal situation, relationship or thing that who you are and what you want doesn’t even play into your decision criteria. You forget what you actually want and value. I wasted so much money, time and emotion in pursuit of the imagined ideal that can never be fully realized.

I say this a lot, that how we do money is how we do everything … so if I am focused on what other people want and how to make things “perfect” for them, my own stifled energy is contributing to a waste of time and money over things that aren’t even important to me.

But it took me a while to figure that out. Before I was aware of that codependent behavior, I couldn’t see that I was wasting money (and my energy) trying to create an ideal situation for others. I would have told you that was money well spent, even though it was spent on things that weren’t important to me.

Money mindset is extremely subtle. It’s very rare for someone to instantly see where their energy is blocked and how that affects their behavior. Instead, maybe they have a shopping habit, buying and ordering things they don’t even need. Maybe they spend more than they bring in every month, creating a debt cycle. Maybe they hoard all their money and won’t even spend it on things they need.

Then ask yourself, what is the energy behind that thought or behavior?

Again, using me as an example, I used to loan people money or buy them things just because they asked or because I knew they wanted it. Was that a great use of my financial resources? No! But I couldn’t change the behavior until I understood the mindset that was behind it.

Awareness changes everything.

It allows you to discover how you’re responding, and then ask yourself: How can I respond in a way that supports how I want to show up in the world?

Here’s another exercise people like: Go back and make a list of every year you have been alive, and then make a few notes about each year – what do you remember about that year? How did you feel? Who were the major players, either good or bad?

You’re going to start to notice trends…trends in how you relate to people, trends in terms of accomplishments, etc. Your trends will be unique to you.

However…I am betting that you can relate at least SOME of those discoveries back to your relationship with money. You don’t need to force it.

And the moment you become more aware, you start to change the dynamic.

And P.S., feel free to get all of my tools and exercises in the free resources library, which you can access here.

Creative Money, LLC is a registered investment adviser in the state of Washington. The adviser may not transact business in states where it is not appropriately registered or exempt from registration. Individualized responses to persons that involve either the effecting of transactions in securities or the rendering of personalized investment advice for compensation will not be made without registration or exemption.